Happy New Year

Today is the day to wish all of my friends:

I have desided to make a few goals for 2008. One of my goals will be serious stash redusing work. I have added Hannes badge to my sidebar.

I have also signed up for May- Britts challange: Who finish the most WISP's in january? Like some other girls I know (no name given hi hi) I have too many unfinished projects in my sewingroom. Tomorrow I will start taking photos of my WISP's (Work In Slow Progress). Untill now I have avoided to talk about or show you my UFO's or WISP's. Soon you will know why!


Love from Nancy in Norway

Christmas tablecloth

Just have to show you new tablecloth made espesialy for Christmas. It is quilted by Quilt'n.

Heart Tutorial

Do you need to make a last minut gift?

1. Make heart plastic templet.

2. Pic nice fabric for hearts. Put fabric right side together.

3. Lay plastic templet on wrong side of fabric and draw around templet.

4. Put cotton batting underneath the two layers of fabric.

5. Go to your sewingmachine. Put stitchlenght to 2 (small stitches). Sew in drawingline. Leave one inch opening for turning right side out.

6. Other side of the work (side with batting) looks like this.

7. Trim away batting close to stitchingline.

8. Put batting on drawingside (to get batting on both sides).

9. Lay new batting down (stitched batting up to see where to sew). Stitch on top of first seam.

10. Don't forget the 0ne inch opening.

11. Trim away all batting close to stitching line.

12. Trim fabric to 1/4 inch seamallowens. Leave extra fabric around opening for turning.

13. Make 3 cuts in seam where the heart goes into a Vally point.

14. Turn heart right side out with your favorit tool. Mine is a wooden chop stick.

15. Forgot to buy batting to fill heart? Use leftovers batting cuts.

16. Put batting on your cuttingmat. Run your rotary cutter back and forth lenghtwise and crosswise to make small pieces.

17. Too bulky? Press batting down with a ruler. Watch your fingers!!

18. Use your favorite tool to stuff heart. Add ribbon and bow if desired.

To make nice Cristmas aromatic heart. Mix hole cloves, canel, dried ginger and dried orangepeel. Crush slightly and put in the middle of heart.

Have fun!

Christmas Peace and Joy

The house is clean, three decorated and refrigerator filled with food and drinks. I'm ready!
I have compleeted my 12 tasks on my list, in time to keep my promise to my self and my family. All was done by friday. I just had to do kitchen floor on saturday. Sunday we had visiors for coffee and exchanged Christmas presents. DH is cooking tonight. I have allready made dessert. I can just relax and enjoy the Christmas spirit. We have now snow. It's raining today. Earlier this week we had frost. The landscape looked beautifull with ice crystals on all threes. Unfortunatly I forgot to take photos.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas.

Love from Nancy

Christmas spirit

Today I had coffee for some friends at my house. Last week I made triangulare coffee placemats. I found them very handy. Can be used for placemat for flowers and in the bread basket.


As you can see, Christmas spirit is entering my house, little by little.



Every night I have been working in front of TV. I have stuffed a lot of Christmas hearts I'm giving away as presents. As you can see I have made a lot and some is going to be hanged in living room window tomorrow. Need to put ribbon on first.

DH have written a nice Christmas letter for family and friends. This evenings task is to put all of them in envelopes and put stamps on. Not bad. One more thing wiped out of my list.

Love from Nancy

2nd Sunday in Advent

Today is 2nd sunday in Advent. I have made reasonable progress on my "What to do" list.

I'm very proud to show you that my Advent decoration in livingroom is done. So, my list is a lot shorter, but still some work to be done. OK, # 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7 is gone from my list. I also have done # 5, but I can not tell if its completed. = )

Take care. Hugs from Nancy

Advent Joy

When I was a little girl my mom always made Advent calenders for me and my brothers. About 10 years ago she refreshed the tradition and we started to make Advent calenders for each other. My mom is also a quilter :-) The first year the 24 small gifts containd blocks with hearts to applique and complete Advent calender on the photo.




This year she have realy made me curious. So far each gift have containd 9 squares to make a ninepatch block with the top fabric for center.

There is no more explaining than to make ninepatch blocks!! And the fabrics are diffrent colors and prints.

Is she doing some stach redusing tricks? Making me do blocks for a quilt top? The blocks are big. Each square in the block is 5 inch. One small packet each day is fun!!

Hugs from Nancy

Christmas in 25 days

I'm behind, definetly behind!!



So, I have desided to take one step at the time. This is my list of what to do:

1. Clean house, one room at the time........... I should be done in time for Christmas then.......... Phuu
2. Look for the Star, the outdoor lights and tabelrunners for Advent. I have it all in boxes in the attic - somewhere ......
3. Hang Advent Star and do Advent decoration in livingroom. Not much but I have to have my Advent tablerunners and candles.
4. Get Hubby to do the outdoor decoration.
5. Remind hubby that writing Chritmas cards is his task!
6. Hang Advent Star and do Advent decoration in livingroom. Tablerunners, candles etc.
7. Buy/make presents for relatives and others to send by regular mail. Have to be done by Des 12.
8. Make Christmas cookies - very important !!
9. Do Christmas decoration in the house as my cleaning proceed.
10. Make dinningplans and make shoppinglists.
11. Prepare food that have to be prepared in advance.
12. Buy presents for hubby and sons.

To be honest, hubby is very good and helping out with cleaning and cooking, but mostly in weekends. Unfortunatly he have just 2 weekends free to help out. I also have a houserule: Whats not done last weekend before Christmas eve is not going to be done! That meens, things on my list that's not done by Des 21 is not going to be done. That is a fact! Christmas eve is going to happen anyway!!

Love from Nancy

Christmas gifts

This last week I have been working on some Christmas gifts. This makeup bags are made from same pattern as in earlier post. Thank you May Britt for the inspiration.

Hanne is another friend that gives me great inspiration. I made this book covers from one of Hannes patterns. Thank you Hanne. Of cause, the decoration is my idea :-)

Today I have been out in the garden doing some fall cleaning and removing dead plants, leaves and such. We have had freezing temperature a couple of nights, but in my area we normaly does not get any snow before Chritmas. I still have to prepare my front yard for early spring flowers. As you probably can understand - a little bit behind schedule.................

Hugs from Nancy

Quiltmeeting

Wednesday evening our local quiltgroup had our monthly meeting. This month we had display of all the quilts made for charity "Tepper som varmer" (children with serious decises). This fall our group have made 23 quilts to give away. There were so many that we had to hang on top of each other. I have all the quilts here to be marked and registrated before I take the trip to the childrens ward at the two hospitals in our region.




I'm very pleased and happy for two reasons. Our local group have only 63 members and my heart is inn for this kind of charity.

We also had regular "Show and tell". I did not manage to take photos of all but here are some of the nice things shown.


Above is to really nice bags. I can not remember who made them ( alzhimer lite LOL)

Next is Sissel laughing at me with her new bag that contained quilttops she have been working on lately.



First she showed her Ellinor Burns quilt made from two packs of squares bought in Birmingham.

And then there was this beautifull Thumbler quilt top for a dobble bed. That's a girl, Sissel. Next show and tell she probably would have both of them quiltet!!


Anne and Kristin from Quilten had this beautifull quilttop made from a pattern by Bugs Barn.

Can you beleve it, there was another girl with the same top but another colorvariation.

Anne Lovise have made this beautifull weddingquilt for her daughter who got married in June. All the guests have written greatings that is stitched in the middle of every heart.

The centerpiece is this beautifull trapunto doves and nest. Very symbolic.

This are some cute angles......

Great meeting.

Hugs from Nancy

Have you missed me????? I have missed you!!!!

I have been totally out...... with pneumonia. I am a lot better now and yesterday I turned on my sewingmachine. It have not been used for a long time. The sewingmachine purred like my cat ! Hanne and May Britt got me on track with inspireing sewingchat on msn. Today we got together with Sigrun and Sølvi and had a really nice sew-along on msn.


I did not sew a lot - like all the other girls, but I'm happy to be "on track" again. I am going to hurry one stitch at time! :-) I put togother the half square triangle blocks from August 14. to a nice top. Tomorrow I'm off to my local quiltshop to get border fabric.


May Britt inspired me to make this makeup bag.



I also made some more blocks from scraps I cut up in August (Gosh time fly!) I use the pattern Star Struck from Quiltville.

It's nice to be back on track !!!

Hugs from Nancy

This is a downer......

At this time I should have been on the bus to Elverum. The plan was a wonderfull week end with May Britt and Hanne in Elverum and to attend classes with Leannes House in Trysil tomorrow. Unfortunatly I got sick and can not go. Instead I'm tucked in a quilt on my sofa watching old movies and feeling sorry for my self. I need to go to the doctor today.

My mom is also a quilter

My mom is also a quilter. I had promished her earlier this year to acompany her on having a salesbooth at a local autumn marked in her region of living. She lives abourt 3 1/2 hours drive from where I live. We got this thiny boot and it got really filled up. It was a lot of visiters at the marked. A lot of work but also a lot of fun! It's my mom in the picture.

I made this bees for the sales booth, but brought them home again. In the area where my mom live its mostly farms with sheep, cows and bigs. The guest towles that I made (and showed in an earlier post) made a good sale.

Gift from a blogger

Look what I received last week in an soft envelope from Linda, the Aussie living in US.
Isn't it beautifull? I am going to use it for my stitchery threads. I simply love it.




Thank you so much, Linda.

I'm back!

Hi to all off you reading my blog.

I am so happy about all of you finding and reading my blog. I have been busy, but did not realize that it is more than a month since my last note! I apologize to all of you that have visited and not finding new posts. Also apologize for not leaving coments in blogs I have visited last month. I find myself in a spot I really don't want to bee in. That is not having time to do things I love - like sewing, spend time with friends, reading and leave notes to bloggers I visit. My energy is very low this fall. Started a new part time job in june but it does not work as good as I hoped to. I'm too tiered as it is now. Need to get my act together and do some changes.

Ok, that was todays confession and compalints.

I love Fridays

The days passes quickly. Clear and cool air in the morning is one of the things autumn brings. This last week have been really nice. Sunny and nice temperature during the day.
I have spent time in the garden doing som clean-up, collecting seeds and picking apples. This weekend I'm making Apple chutney.

Enjoy some photos from my garden.

I enjoy the colours. Hope you do too :-)

I have been doing a few sewing things since last post. This Guest towles are quick and easy gifts that my friends have appriciated. Needed a quick gift and as they turned out nice so I made a few extra ......

Visiting my local quiltshop today, this bunch 'jumped into my shoppingbag'!

Have a relaxing and nice week end.

Hugs from Nancy

Quilting

Isn't this a beauty? A friend of mine, working with interior decoration, have bought this one with the CompuQuilter unit. Yesterday I quiltet one of my quilts on it! It was so much fun!

This is a blue scrap quilt made several years ago. Now it's quilted and just need the binding.

This is Kikki, the proud owner........

...... and me the student :-) Kikki is teaching me to use the unit. I hope to rent time to quilt my own quilts that I can not manage in my normal sewing machine. Next lesson (read next quilt) is going to be in two weeks time. I have 4 more quilttops to be quilted + several in progress :-)

Have a nice day.

Hugs from Nancy

Pink October/ Oktober Rosa

Some weeks ago I signed up for a charity to raise money for breast cancer research. I don't know yet what to make for the auction on e-bay. A scrap quilt would be perfect now that I'm working on stach-redusing projects :-) But, can I make it in time for the auction?

Today I have been to my annual mammography. I suffer weeks in advance! I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000. I did not have to remove my breast, but had some good doses of radiation. My breast is totaly "cooked" and will probably never be normal again. My ribs are hurting and cracking just by a good sneeze. But Hey, I'm alive!

Hugs from Nancy

Treasures from Birmingham

Ok readers. Is this what you have waited for?





I tried to take photos of groups of the treasures I brought home, but it became too many photos :-) You can click on picture to get a bigger one for a closer look. All books and magazines is not in this picture. I had to much luggage for the aireplane. Lucky, a friend of mine was visiting the show by car from Norway. She kinly exceptet to bring a bag of books, magazines, shoes and cloths back to Norway. Otherwise, I would have spent a fortune on overweight fees.

My friend from Norway is returning in a week. I am so much looking forward to have a closer look at the books and magazines. I can not really remember what I have bought :-)


I prewash all my fabrics before use. I have not washed any yet. Have to touch and admire my treasures a bit before useing :-)


Have a nice week end.


Hugs from Nancy

Birmingham

Birmingham was fantastic! It was my first time at a Quiltshow in England. I'm going back next year, for sure.



This is my traveling companion Sissel. We stayed at the Hilton Metropole next to NEC.

First stop - shops! I had a good budget and my plan was: Shop till you drop :-) So many shops!


This is the sweet ladies at The Button Company. I think I have an assorted button collection to last me in to the next century :-).


Not only English shops at the show. This is Quilters Barn Australia. I think this was the only shop with stitchery patterns. Stitchery is very popular here in Norway.

This was an interesting shop called Worn and Washed Fabrics. The shop was filled with collections of reclaimed fabrics in ready-to-sew packs.

I spent 3 days shopping and enjoying all the different exhibitions. So many beautifull quilts, interesting quilts, strange art quilts, ugly quilts, "things" that I hardly could call quilts and young quilters work. Filled with impressions it feels like I need another week to go through my photos and catalogs.

Hugs from Nancy